Category: Links

Glen or Glenda (1953): More Schlock Noir from Ed Wood

Glen or Glenda(1953)

This camp classic is available on YouTube. Feature Dolores Fuller and Bela Lugosi (as the shrink).

“Upon discovering the suicide of a known transvestite, the police inspector seeks enlightenment from a psychiatrist familiar with the phenomenom. The psychiatrist tells him two tales. Glen is to be married to Barbara, but must find a way to tell her of his desire to wear her angora sweater, and of his cross-dressing needs in general. Another is the story of Alan, who decides to physically become a female via surgery (based on the contemporary story of Christine Jorgensen). Throughout the film a scientist inanely babbles about life and death in order to somehow elucidate the story.”

Watch it

Alphaville (1965)

Alphaville 1965

Alphaville, a futuristic B&W noir from 60’s “enfant terrible” French director, Jean Luc Godard, can be viewed in widescreen on-line at Google Video. It is a weird homage to the genre with Lemmy Caution, an American private-eye, played by Eddie Constantine, arriving in Alphaville, a futuristic city on another planet… The female lead is played by Godard’s then wife, the georgeous, Anna Karina. Watch it.

Anna Karina - Alphaville

Pristine Film Noir Trailers

I have prepared a compilation of high quality film noir trailers available on-line at TCM:

Ace in the Hole
Act Of Violence
Angels With Dirty Faces
Asphalt Jungle, The
Big Steal, The
Chinatown
Clash by Night
Criss Cross
Crossfire
Dark Passage
Detective Story
Dial M For Murder
Double Indemnity
Gaslight
Gilda
High Sierra
His Kind Of Woman
I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
Johnny Angel
Johnny Eager
Key Largo
Lady Without Passport, A
Macao
Maltese Falcon, The
Mildred Pierce
Ministry Of Fear
Mystery Street
Narrow Margin, The
Night of the Iguana, The
Nora Prentiss
Notorious
On Dangerous Ground
Petrified Forest, The
Postman Always Rings Twice, The (1946)
Private Detective (1939)
Public Enemy, The
Point Blank
Racket, The
Scarface
Scene of the Crime
Second Chance
The Seventh Victim
Shadow Of Doubt
Shadow On The Wall
Side Street
Split Second
Stranger, The
Strip, The
Sunset Blvd
Suspicion
Tension
Thin Man, The
Touch of Evil
Two Mrs. Carrolls, The
Vertigo
Where Danger Lives
Whiplash
White Heat
Woman On Pier 13, The
Wrong Man, The

MIA Films Noir

The Glass Web

The jackal’s film corner blog has posted the jackal’s favorite films noir yet to be released on DVD. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, but “the tip of the iceberg”. The jackal also notes that Ministry of Fear (1944) is due for release in September, while Dangerous Crossing (1953) has been flagged by Fox for future release. Read the jackal’s post for the fully annotated list.

99 River Street (1953)
Conflict (1945)
Cornered (1945)
Cry Danger (1951)
Human Desire (1954)
Johnny Angel (1945)
Johnny O-Clock (1947)
My Name is Julia Ross (1945)
Nocturne (1946)
Phantom Lady (1944)
Pitfall (1948)
Ride the Pink Horse (1947)
Saigon (1948)
Stranger on the 3rFloor (1940)
The Brasher Doubloon (1947)
The Breaking Point (1950)
The Bribe (1949)
The Fallen Sparrow (1943)
The Glass Web (1953)
The Sleeping City (1950)
The Web (1947)
The Window (1949)
They Won’t Believe Me (1947)
To the Ends of the Earth (1948)

The Web

Extra Extra: Free Movies To Download

RetroTV now offers Azureus Bit-Torrent Client downloads of its public domain movies, including these films noir:

Detour (1945)
The Red House (1947)
Whistle Stop (1946)
Impact (1949)
Quicksand (1950)
Kansas City Confidential (1952)
The Stranger (1946)
Suddenly (1954)

Detour (1945)

Detour (1945)

Watch, Detour, one of the great films noir on-line free at RetroTV. Starring Tom Neal, Ann Savage. IMDB Rating 7.3/10. Considered by Lloydville of mardecortesbaja.com as one of the true noirs. “He went searching for love… but Fate forced a DETOUR to Revelry… Violence… Mystery!”

Trivia: Tom Neal did time in the early 60s for shooting his third wife dead in the back of the head with a 45.  More from Lloydville.

From the IMDB Review:

This is one of the all-time great examples of film noir. It can practically be used to define the genre: shadowy black and white cinematography; a star-crossed protagonist (“…fate sticks out a leg to trip you.”); a femme fatale (the unforgettable Ann Savage as Vera); cynical voice-over narration; ambiguous morality. All these elements are brought together magnificently by director Edgar G. Ulmer, who incredibly made this movie in several days on a shoestring budget. His direction is so masterful that the low budget sets only add to the film. This is a great masterpiece and one of the marvels in film history.

Director Edgar Ulmer’s other noir credits:

Bluebeard (1944)
Strange Illusion (1945)
The Strange Woman (1946)
Ruthless (1948)
Murder Is My Beat (1955)

The Stranger (1946)

Watch , The Stranger, an Orson Welles’s noir on-line free at RetroTV. Stars Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Orson Welles. IMDB Rating 7.5/10. From the New York Times review of the movie’s recent DVD release:

Books On Film Search

The Third Man

Virtual-History.Com is a great site for tracking down books on film noir generally and any books that refer to a certain film. For example this search link will not only return books on The Third Man, but a list of books that substantially reference that film:

Books about The Third Man:

Rob White, The Third Man, London, 2003

Books with substantial mentioning of The Third Man:

David Zinman, 50 Classic Motion Pictures, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of, New York, 1970
JerryVermilye, The Great British Films, Secaucus, N.J., 1978
Ann Lloyd (editor), Movies of the Forties, London, 1982
Anthony Slide, Fifty Classic Films 1932-1982, A Pictorial Record, New York, 1985
Neil Sinyard, Classic Movies, London, 1993
William Hare, Early Film Noir, Greed, Lust and Murder Hollywood Style, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London, 2003

Books with entries on The Third Man:

Michael F. Keaney, Film Noir Guide, 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940-1959, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London, 2003

The Killers (1946) – Siodmak and The Death of Humanism

The Killers (1946)

Jim Groom of the BavaTuesday Blog has written an interesting post on Robert Siodmak’s The Killers, featuring a chilling clip from the opening scene of this classic noir.

… The first 10 minutes of The Killers is noir at its meanest and most brutal, particularly because it is framed by a historical moment in which the is world reeling from the realization of the violent extremes that humanity is all too capable of. Film Noir in many ways marks the end of humanism through the filmic language and ushers in the rise of our modern era…

Quicksand (1950)

Watch , Quicksand, a minor 50’s noir on-line free at RetroTV.  Stars some big names: Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Barbara Bates, and Peter Lorre.

This is the story of a nice guy who borrows $20 from a cash register to keep a date… with a cop… and a killer!” After borrowing $20 from his employer’s cash register, an auto mechanic is plunged into a series of increasingly disastrous circumstances which rapidly spiral out of his control.